The weblog of Norman Geras

November 30, 2004

It has been suggested that in the review of the functioning of the UN, an effort should be made to examine the circumstances in which the use of force can and should be authorised. Some would wish to see a greater use of the council's power to hold members to their duties to protect their own citizens: to intervene by force, if necessary, in situations of genocide, as in Rwanda or Darfur...

... Where intervention will be both justified as the only way to prevent grave violations of human rights and acceptable to a broad membership, I do not think that article 2:7 of the charter [about not interfering in essentially domestic matters] will stand in the way.

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter...

I'm puzzled by Blix's thinking on this point. Perhaps his idea is that once violations by governments of the human rights of their own citizens become too extreme, then the situation may be treated - pragmatically - as no longer being confined to the jurisdiction of the state concerned. But recent controversies underline the difficulty of agreeing when such a threshold has been crossed. Had it been crossed by Saddam? Has it today in Darfur or Zimbabwe? Leaving the matter entirely to the political dispositions of various member states at any given moment doesn't seem like such a great idea. What would be lost by trying to specify the threshold with some precision?

The most successful British Prime MInister of the twentieth century? Clem Attlee. That's from 'a survey among academics specialising in modern British history and politics':

According to Mark Gill of Mori and Prof Kevin Theakston of Leeds University, "while Churchill's statemanship during the Second World War is consistently seen as the greatest foreign policy success of any 20th century prime minister, it seems that academic specialists put more weight on Attlee's post-war domestic policy reforms when rating the overall performance of both leaders".

Most of those who backed Attlee singled out his government's welfare state reforms and the creation of the National Health Service as the vital 20th century domestic policy achievements.

Churchill comes second; Blair sixth. For the rest, here. It would be interesting to see how the results of a survey among non-specialists compared with these.

This is good news. Chile seeks to come to terms with the crimes of the Pinochet years:

The Chilean government is to compensate 28,000 victims of torture after a comprehensive report published yesterday concluded that Augusto Pinochet's military government had orchestrated a state policy of terror.

Addressing the nation, President Ricardo Lagos spoke of "the magnitude of the suffering, the insanity of the intense cruelty, the immensity of the pain" detailed in the findings of the national commission on political detention and torture, led by the archbishop emeritus of Santiago, Sergio Valech.

The year-long commission heard testimony from 35,000 people who had been victims of torture during the dictatorship of 1973 to 1990.
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[T]he Valech report give[s] the lie to what has for 30 years been the line taken by everyone from Gen Pinochet down: that abuses were the work of a handful of renegade officers.

After decades of argument over whether one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, a group of international "wise men" will this week tell the United Nations to outlaw all terror attacks on civilians or risk losing its moral authority.

In a report to be unveiled on Thursday, seen in part by The Telegraph, a panel appointed to reform the UN said it must send "an unequivocal message that terrorism is never an acceptable tactic, even for the most defensible of causes".
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On the question of "resistance" to occupation, the report declares that "there is nothing in the fact of occupation that justifies the targeting and killing of civilians".
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[The] report's section on terrorism argues that "lack of agreement on a clear, well-known, definition … has stained the UN's image".

Indeed. Relatedly, it seems that Hamas may be willing to call a halt to attacks on Israelis, at least during the process of electing a successor to Yasser Arafat. Or maybe not.

Not all sites make their raison d'être, or even authorship, clear and it is not always easy to characterise the focus of a blog, but I have tried to indicate the general orientation in most cases, where it is not obvious from the title. If the site does not seem to have any specific focus (which many do not) I have tried to indicate the country of origin, which will often be a guide to the general perspective.

November 29, 2004

Some while back Mark Mardell of the BBC came to be known in the Geras household as Mark Mywords. It seemed to go well enough with his role, and accorded with a practice in the household - a practice for which I am mainly responsible - of suggesting variations on the sound of people's names. On the same principle George Alagiah became George Allegation.

Anyway, in due course Mark Mardell's name underwent a further change, and he is now known as Mark Mydoughnuts. This wasn't and isn't meant with any ill intent towards him; it was merely a response to his changing appearance.

It was while watching the news the other night that I was called something I had never been called before. I had just observed that Mark Mardell, the BBC's estimable political correspondent, could do with losing a pound or two, that maybe his report about the Queen's Speech might have been enhanced were the viewer's concentration not distracted by the way he had attempted to corral an obstreperous waistline by fastening tight all three of the buttons on his jacket, when from the sofa came the suggestion that I was completely out of order.

"You are," I was told, "such a fattist."

I had better say that I am definitely not a fattist myself, understanding all too well (because I share) the temptations that lead people towards the condition of fatness.

The Swiss Army knife, the world's best-known and possibly first-ever gadget goes 21st century with this stylish USB key model. For the neanderthals out there a USB key is simply the best way to transport your valuable documents, MP3 files or photos around. No more messing with antiquity in the [shape] of floppy disks - remember those - as this little package gives you 128 megabytes of storage and even comes with a knife, a pair of scissors and a nail file. Built-in security software keeps your computer files away from prying eyes. Simply flick open the USB key, plug into the back of virtually any PC or Mac and then just drag and drop your files across. The pen knife also includes a ball point pen...

It was a grey, damp Manchester Sunday morning and I was standing out on the grey, damp Manchester road, waiting for a bus. I'm looking down along where the road makes a long sweeping curve and for a good while there just ain't no buses to be seen. The occasional vehicle comes into view and approaches loudly or more softly according to size and type, and then - as they do - drives past and is gone. For some reason I think of Stephen Spielberg's Duel, with that winking monster-truck. Finally a bus shows up.

So I got on it and saw an old friend of mine sitting there, on his way to Fallowfield and to church. We chatted for the few minutes it took to get to his stop, about this and that and computer viruses - until he got off. Two or three stops later, a dog got on the bus, unaccompanied by any human or even owner. This dog behaves as if he knows buses. He gets on, ambles down to the back looking this side and that, and seems perfectly OK with life. One stop along, the driver notices him and enquires whether anyone is responsible for him. Since nobody is, the driver wants him off, so I go to the front and call the dog in a friendly way, trying to interest him in the prospect of exiting. But he's not interested, so I go to the back and pick him up, chatting to him in what I consider to be a soothing manner, and explaining that he needs to get off and go home. He has no objection and allows me to put him down on the pavement. The bus continues on its journey.

Well, by now you'll have guessed the meaning of this strange episode. It's that for going on a week, I've been blogging under less than optimal conditions. My computer at home is gaschplottt. With viruses or not with viruses, I cannot say. All I know is it's schlabadoonk and also schlabadannnk, and this despite the heroic efforts of two friends, who know these things in a way that I do not know them, and the less heroic efforts of the technical backup department of the outfit from which I bought the now ailing beast (for ruboolas, it should be said, of the more than ample variety).

What I'm trying to say to you in a roundabout way is that at the moment I cannot function as effectively as I'd like to, and I need to get the problem sorted out. If therefore you notice my posting going into a temporary decline please infer the inferrable. I'll do my best. But with one or two other distragmos, the thing is getting in my way more than somewhat.